The Luna Park Gazette

In 1994, an American teenager living in Singapore was sentenced to six strokes with a cane for stealing road signs and vandalizing cars. I took a Singapore-related beating recently, but I never left Brooklyn. My relationship with this Southeast Asian city state is pretty much limited to entertainment, such as Road to Singapore with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Saint Jack , a 1979 movie with Ben Gazzara, and a fabulous off-Broadway show called Song of Singapore that I saw sometime in 1990s. Now this particular fiasco begins--like most of the others in my life--with me giving into panic. I was attempting to interview someone for a story I was working on. I was on a tight deadline and the individual I wanted to speak with lives in Singapore, which 13 hours ahead of New York. The person called me at the expected time, I picked up the phone and…the line went dead. Naturally, I freaked out. I had to speak with this man right this minute, so I called him back on my I-phone an...

I can be a very meme guy. Show me an encouraging little ditty on a New Agey background and I’ll slap that bugger on every social media platform I can think of. Given my generally dark outlook on life, I’m ready to pounce on any positive pronouncement like a Siberian tiger on a T-bone steak. They offer hope and encouragement, both of which I am sorely lacking. Some of them do read like touchy-feely fortune cookie one-liners but I can’t help it. When I find myself dismissing an affirmation as corny, I ask one simple question: What are you doing to improve your life? My response is usually something along the lines of “uh…nothing.” In addition to lifting my own spirits, I get a thrill when I post one of the affirmations and my Facebook friends send me a thumbs-up to show their appreciation. It shows that I’ve touched a nerve--in a good way. I’ve gotten into some very nasty political fights on Facebook, and I have nothing to show for them except bad feelings, lingering...

They had me going there for a second. I heard the ping on my phone yesterday announcing incoming e-mail, and I shot a quick Pavlovian look to the screen. “ You’ve been considered for inclusion… ” the opening line read. Really? Somebody wants to include me in…something? After all this time hunkering down in my apartment, hiding from the winter, the plague and most human contact, I’m finally receiving invitations? ‘The Golden Summer of Her Smile’ The excitement lasted less than a second before logic took over and I realized that it was an internet come-on that should be deleted with all due hate. But that brief thrill reminded me of how humans long for connection and, how Valentine’s Day, which comes up tomorrow, highlights that most basic need. I like to listen to Irish music, a habit I picked up from my father, who used to blast the Clancy Brothers’ records at full volume. While this was hardly the best introduction to the songs of my heritage, those tu...

Do they ever come back to you? The question was put to me Wednesday morning by a total stranger as I was walking to my doctor’s office. We had met moments earlier after I overheard a worker at a local pizzeria tell this fellow that it was 10:45 AM. I found this somewhat surprising since my phone said it was 9:45AM, which meant that either I was very late for my doctor’s appointment, or the pizza guy thought we were in Chicago. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t left Brooklyn, so I turned around to this slightly built gentleman in his fifties and showed him my phone. “It’s only 9:45AM,” I said. He thanked me and explained that he had gotten rid of his cell phone after his best friend died. “I don’t need it anymore,” he said. “No one calls me.” I understand that a growing number of young people are getting rid of their cellphones to preserve their peace of mind, but it was painful to hear that someone had ditched his phone because he had no one to call. I thought about...